29 comments:

Firstly, I think you missed the mark about places where it is okay to be nasty, sexist, mean, whatever. I have no problem with venting and joking and so forth in a closed context. The caveat is that it has to be something understood. For instance - a friend got me to join her Facebook group. This group was mean, racist, sexist, all of that. And the jokes? They were FUNNY. But I told the friend I had to leave because I didn't know them, I couldn't personally tell that they were joking, and so the only way I could really listen to it was to pretend, or in other words, to lie to myself. The problem here is that these guys are combining their desire for a nasty and mean club (I can appreciate such a thing) with their desire to dominate a large venue (fighting competitions). Can't have it both ways, guys.

Secondly, Leland Yee isn't the bad guy, and I wish people would stop ragging on him. He has gone on record as saying he is perfectly okay with completely depraved video games, and is even okay with parents getting them for their kids, just that this decision-making should be in the hands of the parents. It's not like "Kids can't smoke." It's "Kids can smoke, but only with their parents' okay." Call it what you want, but he's not trying to censor the medium or attack gamers. We can disagree with him, but he isn't the bad guy.

Who cares this much. Let natural selection take its course. If someone does something to you, then stand up for yourself and do something about it. You dont need "Movie BOB" to go off on this for you. We go from the bully SF guy to the bully Movie Bob guy on the other side of it. Nothing Bob said really does another to help this out its just Bob going off on it. If you are going to get all up in arms about it then do something about it not just talk about it.

Hey! I feel insulted.Samurai Pizza Cats is not some obscure TV show - at least not for my generation. It was one of the First TV shows for kids in the early years of cable TV here in Israel and it was one of the best. It's the only show where the dubbing in hebrew is better then the English dubbing.

Just a presentation note: Try not to hammer a point of how it's not okay to ignore the many ghouls "we" apparently have in our gaming culture closet while simultaneously kicking off your program in a tone that matches a stereotypical disappointed mother who now has to figure out how to hide THIS particular bad incident of Billy's from the rest of the neighborhood's eyes. It colors the tone of your persuasion as harmful to your objective.

I really cant belive this guy has gotten away with thinking like this for so long.

Also, to the people saying he isnt a bad guy and doesnt deserve the hate...really? When DOES a person become a bad guy? So you arent a bad person if you are acting mean and blatantly sexist at a large event in front of a female and then act as if this is not only ok, but to be expected and part of the very identity of this games community? And your response to the suggestion of removing it is to reference a game community with relatively good manners as something to be feared?...

Does a guy have to go to Dr.Doom levels of evil and dickish before he is officially a "bad" guy?

Should we take this as a prelude to a Game Overthinker episode covering this issue in full?

Something to add to the specific Cross Assault incident: It's shocking to me that no one from Capcom stepped in. The girl in question actually expressed she wanted to leave much sooner because of how uncomfortable she felt but she was contractually obligated to stay.

She expressed how she felt during one of the streams (I believe day 5) but the guy who harassing her defended his behavior towards her. Her forfeiting her match was clearly what she saw as her only exit.

How the hell did Capcom allow this and not step up to put the creep in his place?

Really, unless there is some strange stipulation in the contract she signed, she should sue. She was being sexually harassed for days and all of it was being streamed online for the world to see and she could not leave if she wanted to. How utterly humiliating and Capcom allowed all of it to continue!

I think nerd culture is so hostile toward "outsiders" because they're trying to carve out a space for themselves in a world that has rejected them. I really don't see what's wrong with that. Other cultures get to create "safe spaces" for themselves without being accused of being exclusionary.

I came across this video that I think should be shared and viewed because I believe it shows the other side of the coin. The positive side of this community that doesn't get shown or reported on as much as it should.

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uPhDl60y_Xs

This is to show that not only are all gamers not like that sexual harassing and bigoted creep from the Cross Assault incident but that he is completely wrong when he says that disgusting behavior like his are integral to the fighting game environment and fighting game experience.

Bob, Damn glad to see someone do a piece, and speak up about that shit! Because it is shit, and when you leave it around and let it ripen and fester, it starts to stink. That shit and it's stink are a stain and a dishonor on our medium, and the cultural identity thereof, and I for one will not miss it and the mentality that breeds it, when it is finally gone. From the gaming culture and any other culture on this earth.

Good on you sir. I'm also glad you bitch-slapped that cowardly "free speech" excuse idiots use to run away from an argument. I love free speech, but having that right also demands you use it responsibly. Also, some guys from Level Up who did commentary on a stream called Wednesdays Night Fights went a little overboard with remarks regarding this incident and they have been punished by having their sponsorship from Shoryuken.com (probably the BIGGEST fighting game fansite) pulled. That is harsh but just about the only way they'd learn

IF nerds have been chastised and rejected by society, I don't think the threat of chastisement or rejection will have any sway.

Been there, done that.

Also, racism, classism, sectarianism, elitism, and nationalistic jingoism, all exist within every single group known to man, and this includes feminism (heavy anti-male sentiment in more extreme circles), Rich and Poor share a mutual hatred and disgust for each other, nations have developed stereotypes about each other, and so on.

The problem is these "-isms" are acceptable policy positions for all these groups. Feminists can grind on Men for everything under the sun, up to and including blaming an entire gender on rape.

Rich and Poor are both allowed to grind on each other for ruining the economy and being shiftless and lazy, even if neither are completely true of every member.

Intelligent people get to lord their gift of greater understanding as superiority over "inferior minds," including calling them retarded, like I've heard you say before, Bob. (Guess what else isn't OK, Bob. Also, guess what you're guilty of.)

However, a group of men can't ever let anything that bothers them about women be known. Or ANYBODY for that matter. For example, it's OK for ethnic groups to hate on "whitey," because they can lay their oppression at the feet of the white people. It's OK for feminists to shit all over men, actually get away with a position that assumes every man is a potential rapist until proven otherwise, call them all violent, and so on and so forth.

But Lord damn the man, presumably white, who's suffered at the hands of any minority group. He must suffer in silence, unable to even speak his grievances. The last acceptable bigotry is against men.

I think nerd culture is so hostile toward "outsiders" because they're trying to carve out a space for themselves in a world that has rejected them. I really don't see what's wrong with that.

You're right. There's nothing wrong with that.

Other cultures get to create "safe spaces" for themselves without being accused of being exclusionary.

Here's where there's something wrong with that. Just because you've made a safe place for yourself doesn't mean that you're suddenly immune to criticism, nor should it be. It doesn't suddenly mean they can't be excluding to other people, either. There's no reason they shouldn't be accused of exclusion if they're guilty of it.

Why shouldn't I also be welcome in this safe place? Should I also have a place to safely play videogames openly as myself without being barraged by slurs? I'm not an outsider in this club, I've been here since the 90's, so shouldn't I also have the same benefits? Shouldn't I also be allowed to have a shelter from the outside world to be a nerd in peace?Because call me crazy, but being singled out to be raped sure wouldn't make me feel very safe in this "safe" place.

You're contradicting yourself here. Gamers don't like having their space invaded by the people who ostracize them in public. We're in this community to get away from that shit. Gamers want a peaceful place to game without being harassed by the outside. The premise is similar to the idea that battered women's shelters don't like husbands coming around asking questions.

@PatchworkPoltergeist"Should I also have a place to safely play videogames openly as myself without being barraged by slurs? I'm not an outsider in this club, I've been here since the 90's, so shouldn't I also have the same benefits? Shouldn't I also be allowed to have a shelter from the outside world to be a nerd in peace?"Yes you should be able to do all those things. If you don't make fun of people in public, then obviously I wasn't talking about you.

Anonymous said: The problem is these "-isms" are acceptable policy positions for all these groups. Feminists can grind on Men for everything under the sun, up to and including blaming an entire gender on rape.

You're describing a false equivalence here. I understand your point that people with privilege (people who are white, male, able-bodied, heterosexual, cisgendered, and/or wealthy) face a greater backlash when making exclusionary statements than people without privilege. This is true. But the reason for this is that it's a greater problem. People with privilege hold insitutionalised power over people without. Institutionalised racism, classism and sexism are very real things, and in the effort to eliminate them, the focus is on members of privileged groups because only they have the power to stop feeding the system of institutionalised prejudice.

(note: I am not saying that all members of privileged groups are prejudiced. I am saying that those members of privileged groups who are prejudiced are the only ones who can stop it, because nobody can force anyone else to stop being prejudiced).

Does that mean that it's okay for those without privilege to harass/insult/verbally abuse members of privileged groups? Absolutely not. Yes, it certainly happens, and no, it doesn't get as much attention, because it's not as pressing an issue. But they certainly aren't acceptable policy positions. You are 100% correct when you point out that intelligent people shouldn't lord their intelligence over others. You are not correct when you say that they "get to" do it. Case in point: You are calling Bob out on his doing exactly that. Which is a good thing!

By the way, feminism is not, in any way, anti-male. There certainly are people who hate men and who blame all men for rape, and many of them may even call themselves feminists, but they do not represent the feminist movement as a whole. The feminist movement aims to convince people that everyone should be treated equally, regardless of gender. There is a lot of anger against the mysoginistic system, but anger against innocent men is misplaced. And most feminists understand that.

While I agree with the sentiment of this video, it is in no way OK for a group to be singled out for an aspect of themselves that they ether cannot change or should not have to as it has nothing to do with a third party.

I do however have an issue with the way that this particular issue has centred around the events that occurred during Cross Assault.

The majority of the gaming press have based their reporting of this issue on the comments of one man and the tweets of one woman. There does not seem to have been an attempt to consult the other people on the show, or within the community that is being hung out to dry.

As with many other serious issues that face gaming/geek culture as soon as a scape goat appears they are tarred and feathered so everybody else can sit back and pretend that this isn't an issue in their community.

Sexism and other sorts of bigotry exist in every gaming community, even those with a greater perceived professionalism. It exists on XBL and PSN in perhaps its rawest form, within almost every genre of gaming communities are tainted with bad apples.

These people quite rightly should be exposed and wherever possible shown the error of their ways. However to alienate group due to how an issue is reported only makes them more insular and defensive, less likely to make the changes that need to happen because they feel attacked.

Communities by their very nature are fluid, and as people come and go from them ideas change and as demographics within gaming expand these cases will inevitably become fewer and fewer in number. That is not to say we all shouldn't do what we can though.

A great example of the FGC looking at itself is this recent show http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKVgGJkMxG4&feature=player_embedded they are still new to casting so please don't judge the lack of technical presentation rather than the content.

Rather than simply men discussing how this is an issue it asks some of the women within the community how they feel that gaming and the fighting game community can move on.

That said Bob, I enjoy your videos immensely and look forward to seeing more in the future.

You're describing a false equivalence here. I understand your point that people with privilege (people who are white, male, able-bodied, heterosexual, cisgendered, and/or wealthy) face a greater backlash when making exclusionary statements than people without privilege. This is true. But the reason for this is that it's a greater problem. People with privilege hold insitutionalised power over people without.

Um... no... privilege has nothing to do with any of those things on an individual level (and a hell of a lot less then it used to on larger scales... at least here in my state and in the US at large). That is a fallback statement many use to basically gloss over things. Nothing more.

Look, if you want to say it's wrong, fine. It's wrong on all counts then. There is no "well this race/sexual orientation/gender has more power" that can justify giving other groups more of a pass. There just isn't.

Furthermore, all or nothing is the ONLY way you are going to breed it out. If that kid who happens to be racially (or any other way) privileged sees only he cant say these things, what do you think he will think about it? Either he will think there is something wrong with him (damaging him) or he will learn to hate them for basically being allowed to hate him. In essence you BREED THE VERY THING YOU ARE FIGHTING.

Megabyte says: If that kid who happens to be racially (or any other way) privileged sees only he cant say these things, what do you think he will think about it? Either he will think there is something wrong with him (damaging him) or he will learn to hate them for basically being allowed to hate him.

But my point is that they aren't allowed to hate him. I'm absolutley not advocating hate speech by anyone, toward anyone. I was explaining the reason certain hate speech gets more attention than others. But this does not make hate speech from any particular group any more excusable. It SHOULD be called out, and it SHOULD be condemned. Always. You and I agree on this. I apologise if I didn't make that clear in my previous post.

So when we have this very justified outrage at this gamer's misogyny, for Anonymous to stand up and argue that MEN are the real victims in this modern world is nothing short of bullshit. It has nothing to do with the topic of this video, and it's also not even close to being true. If a woman makes a blanket statement calling all men violent, and Anonymous were to call her out on it, he would most certainly find agreement and support. It may not get a ton of media attention, but he would not be forced to suffer in silence, as he puts it.

(This is Megabyte... just not at home and not trusting of work's AV enough to log in)

Now you see, we took different points from his argument. You took that men are the real victims (and we agree, this is horseshit... well outside of divorce issues, but that is unrelated to this... just a footnote). I took home the idea of silent acceptance (the whole no media attention thing).

And to use your own example, yes, he would find plenty of support for calling her out, but would her actions hang over her? Or would it be over the next day (or week at most)? I guarantee a reversed roll the guy would never live it down, and that is really what Im taking home there... and seems a rather legitimate point, and a point that I think only breeds the very thing we can both agree is plain wrong since it at least shows the appearance of one being okay and the other not.

Okay! I get where you're coming from. And I agree with what you're saying; I also think that all hate speech should be publicly condemned. I just can't get as excited over this issue as over the issue of institutionalised sexism/racism/classism. For me, this issue is just so much bigger and more destructive. So my first reaction to comments like yours is "Well, you're missing the point!" Even when what you're saying is very valid.

I just love how people actually READ what you posted before responding.

Like, that bit about contradicting yourself. Isn't THAT response in actuality contradicting ITSELF? What's the point of making a peaceful place to game without being harassed by the outside, when you're being harassed on the inside as well? Kind of counter-productive. That's exactly the point. Gamers who don't want to be ostracized SHOUDLN'T be ostracized within their own community.

@biomechanical923

Patchwork was quoting you because they agreed you, genius. Don't turn against your allies in a debate, that TOO is counter-productive.

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About Me

Bob is a part-time independent filmmaker, part-time amateur film critic and full time Movie Geek. He is heterosexual, a pisces, and a severely lapsed Catholic. He is a tireless enemy of censorship, considers his personal politics "Libertine" and enjoys acting as a full time irritant to overly serious people of ALL political stripes.